Is your love HyperQBic?
Does it have the colorpuntal pearls of a ghost poem?
Here we go again.
I’m not thirsty, you’re thirsty
AS MUCH ADO ABOUT NOTHING
“Didn’t I tell you what I believe,
did somebody say that . . .”
Sade
Once, I knelt
almost nightly
to hum & strum
a red carnation
& blue jasmine psalm
—a hummingbird
hovering for nectar.
Once, my ruby neck
needed nothing
but the magenta lines
of prayer
your lips nibbled
at its nape
and my nipples
needed nothing except
the cornsilk calm
of your fingers
under cotton sheets.
Was I wrong
not to believe
what you whispered
or seemed to whisper
in my ear?
All moons wane
and perhaps because
of the “shadow
box & double cross”
of two tongues
or because I failed
to heed your wrists’
radiant craving
for velvet-lined
police bracelets
and obsidian
prayer beads
your fingers
now trace
another man’s tattoos.
And perhaps
not wane as failure
but a decrescendo
in the key of F
I can hum
under my atheist breath.
Was our last adieu
a riff that resolves
our differences
in F flat
or a riff in the bass
looping my faith
into a fugue in the rain?
Who knows
what any religion
requires beyond belief?
Now, I believe
nothing—
but some nights
the outer ear
of the moon
claims to still hear
my carnation
& cornflower guitar
tuned to the notes
of blue jasmine
you left
in these blankets
and sheets.
